[ClaireSolt]

What is really behind this is a tax system that creates perverse incentives. The Federal government has an efficient if ocercive tax collection system that takes more than it needs. It starves local and state governments and undermines their jurisdiction. So, states and local governments send representatives to try to get as much of their money back as possible. But it comes back with strings attached that keep the locals from setting good priorities.

Imagine sitting on a NO levy board and knowing that the welfare of the city depended on the vote of some senile old senator from Alaska. A city like NO, being a major port, should be prosperous on its own. Most cities in the world have been ports. The feds must have wrongly claimed revenues from ports thereby starving them of their own revenue and making them dependant on per capita revenue sharing schemes, instead.

As usual, Newt does not look to how the government creates problems. He's just for more government.

[ovrtaxt]

The points you make are correct. But his solution is simple- law enforcement.

A much as I hate big government, law enforcement is a legitimate role.

[RobbyS]

Don’t give local and state governments a pass. What they can’t get from Washington, they get out of your pocket. Washington reduces incomes taxes; local and state government increase them. Furthermore they waste those funds on the same sort of thing that Congress does for for the same reason. They want to get re-elected.